


nothing owed but years to thee

by LadyAllana



Series: to time [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, BAMF Loki (Marvel), BAMF Pepper Potts, Bucky Barnes Feels, Do-Over, F/M, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, M/M, Natasha Romanov Feels, POV Multiple, Team Daddy Issues, Time Travel Fix-It, Timeline What Timeline, Tony Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-05-03 05:59:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 14
Words: 16,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14562399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyAllana/pseuds/LadyAllana
Summary: It starts with two blue aliens and a genius playboy philanthropist on a deserted planet. They have paid the price of their mistakes, they will not make the same ones a second time.Time Travel fix-it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the Lord Byron poem "To Time". It's amazing, and a pretty accurate description of my feelings after Infinity War.
> 
> I basically have no concept of linear time or consistent povs for that matter, but considering the movie we are writing on can you really blame me?
> 
> I have this undying respect for Pepper Potts from the very beginning of Iron Man series and a motherly instinct to protect Loki and Bucky at all cosr. Also a newly found interest in Bruce/Natasha after rooting for Clintasha for so long so we'll see how that goes...

_this is how it ends._

 

The Hulk is silent.

 

He had given the last moments to Bruce in an unexpected moment of kindness, perhaps thinking of his own relationship with Brunnhilde but the emotions are too much for Banner to bear, the pain and the anguish too strong that he has no choice but to step out, to do Banner’s job for him.

 

Natasha is cradled in his huge arms, a rag doll of a thing, blood covering half her face and body bend in ways that no human should be able to. A slow lullaby is on his crude lips, two huge dirty fingers gently close her unseeing eyes.

 

“ _Close your eyes, the sun is going down…”_

 

The big guy doesn’t cry but it’s obvious that Banner is crying inside, and Hulk can’t bear to let go.

 

M’Baku stands next to them, in silent mourning for comrades as he carries his Queen’s lifeless body, Okoye too lost in the last battle with the rest of the Dora Milaje and passing the sacred duty to him only for him to fail.

 

Shuri made her brother proud, for there is still a Wakanda for them to stand upon, one that M’Baku wished to rule but a blink of an eye ago but now the only one left to do so even if he doesn’t even begin to know how to.

 

Thor still hasn’t caught his breath, the hammer still sizzling. Steve looks around to the ruins of what has been left of their Earth, it’s too much to breathe, too much to survive once again, hands holding the empty air.

 

Too late.

 

_Always too late._

 

He looks at the ground in vain, trying to see the dust that has long flown away with the souls of those lost on the battle field. Steve believed in a God once.

 

He knows that Wakandans believe in their own gods as well.

 

But Thor, crying in the middle kneeling on the bloody ground, more than anything, a testament to their own failure.

 

Steve takes a shaky breath in and it burns his lungs more than the snow on the mountains, the water filling up his lungs in the lake.

 

This is the third time.

 

Third time lucky and third time damned and there are no chances left.

 

His hand but grasps empty air alive with lightning burning his fingertips.

 

The Hulk gives an angry roar. Steve thinks he doesn’t know how to cry.

 

Steve isn’t sure he remembers it himself.

 

Hands grasping empty air.

 

Third time lucky.

 

_Third time damned._

 

And then the lightning swallows them all.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pffft.

 

     _This is how it shouldn’t have gone:_

 

     She woke up to blood on sheets today, seeping through her sleeping shorts to the long cooled down bed. The cramps had been going on for a while, but the tears are quite a new development.

 

     The inevitable companion of expectation comes crushing in, and the lack of nightmares in her sleep only welcomes her to a nightmare in her waking hours.

 

     She should not have hoped.

 

     Scooping up the linens to throw them out before she gathers up the rage to burn them in the fireplace, she thinks that she is glad that he has spent the night in the lab, so that he doesn’t have to see her misery.

 

     She had suspected it for the last two weeks.

 

     This desperate twinge of hope she had been too wise not to share with his concerned gaze.

 

     She is glad at least, that he doesn’t have to go through it.

 

     But it’s hard to breathe this close to sheets that were supposed to smell like him to smell like salt and iron.

 

     Like tears and heartbreak.

 

     She desperately wants him here.

 

     But no, she will not put him through this as well.

 

*

 

     Three steps to the right, take a deep breath.

 

     Aim.

 

     It’s between heartbeats you get the perfect shot.

 

     Perfect.

 

     His aim has never been short of perfect, with or without enhancement.

    

     The little girl, the princess he reminds himself, starts clapping with a huge smile on her face.

 

     It’s a foreign feeling. His face hurts in return, muscles contract and it takes him a while to realize that he is responding in return to her sweet innocence. He hasn’t smiled in decades.

 

     “I think it is done, brother.”

 

     She gives a high five to the King, who looks at her with fondness in his eyes behind the stern look on his face.

 

     “We can now remove the arm.”

 

     He thought that nothing hurt anymore.

 

     Maybe this too, is progress.

 

     The tears come with the smiles.

 

     Shuri but touches his shoulder with the vibranium tool she is holding with one small gloved hand.

 

     Bucky falls down screaming.

 

*

 

 

 

_This is how it goes instead:_

      Her heels click on the floor, white shining tiles under red designer ones he ‘gifted’ her on her last birthday. The night sky is a clear contrast to the calming white walls of the Stark Industries, the penthouse restaurant with a private chef closed down tonight for a private meeting Tony has scheduled months in advance with an investor.

 

     It has been a whirlwind couple of months to say the least, starting with Tony’s confession and his discovery of a new freaking element which came with a Nobel that was decidedly too late and a new sparkling interest in nanotechnology that spiraled out of control fast. Those who didn’t know him work himself to tears and nosebleeds for long torturous hours accepted it as a Stark trait.

 

     Pepper had known him for far too long though.

 

      One day he had just decided to leave the company to her of all people, _what do you mean of all people Pepper, it was always going to be you,_ and heading the RD department for the foreseeable future.

 

     With new Tony came his new projects for a tower that had been in the talks for some time and his recent efforts to sign one Bruce Banner under Stark Industries, the only thing he asked her to make sure of when he signed his company over to her.

 

     Pepper had been too startled to even witness the pace of the changes Tony seemed to be going through let alone be a part of them but surprisingly she found out that Tony had been right and unknowingly she had been groomed for this job for years. Of course there had been many oppositions in the beginning but they were quickly silenced after Tony’s new advancements in nanotechnology, proving that he yielded much better results without bureaucracy left in the hands of only person he trusted on the planet.

 

     Now after months of hard work and a tentative relationship with the childish man who made their relationship much more mature than he should be able to, she was being ushered into a meeting by her new assistant Natalie, which concerned the collaboration of Stark Industries and a Scandinavian company to present an offer to the third nation country of Wakanda for various natural sources and research.

 

     She steps in to soft jazz music and serious conversation, well as serious a Tony can be with a hearty laugh following soon after a comment made about something called a pointbreak?

 

     Tony gets up from his chair when they see her approaching, with a warm smile on his face even though she can see the grimace and the unshed tears behind his sleepless eyes, a scene she has become to familiar with ever since Afghanistan.

 

     The man who was sitting with him with a half full wine glass in his hand stands up as well. Trading the wine for a firm handshake with cold, nimble fingers.

 

He is tall and dark, with beautiful features and hair going down to his shoulders, wearing a dark green shirt under a gray vest. Behind him is a red-haired assistant, much like Natasha stands, a solemn expression on her face and her big blue eyes.

 

The investor who towers over Tony in the small penthouse quickly looks at Natalie behind her, something akin to recognition in his face before turning back to her and dialing up his charms to a hundred.

 

     “Its nice to meet you Ms. Potts, I’m Loki Odinsson.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think personal boundaries can be problematic for anyone but Tony who doesn’t like to be handed things and puts the metal willingly back into his body and Nebula who has been torn apart and sewn back together its probably a bit more complex? And Loki’s mountain high identity issues come with a side package of body dysmorphia as he is something completely different than what he has been raised up to believe and act as. Yes, he is a shapeshifter but its different to be able to transform yourself willingly, under control and be someone other than you thought you were.

 

_This is how it starts:_

1.

    

 

     The blue lady is screaming. Hers are not the gut wrenching sobs that he has long ran out of in the last few hours but of unending rage, of insanity that reminds him of someone from somewhere, but he hasn’t got the energy or the will to do so just now.

 

     Tony doesn’t know how long he has been standing there trying to hold on to the ashes of the kid that keep getting away from him in the harsh wind until there is nothing left of Peter. Peter who was his responsibility, who was on whom, who Tony let down in the worst way possible.

 

     The blue lady, who looks more like a girl behind her black tears is dry heaving now, like she wants to throw up and swallow the whole world at the same time.

 

     The sound is all buzzed out until it turns into mechanical whimpers, wheezing finally in a language he knows how to hear, how to focus on, how to understand.

 

     How to fix.

 

     The mechanic who knows all the answers to the most useless of the questions and can’t even begin to deal with the rest. All the better, he will at least have something to focus on in the middle of nothingness.

 

     He turns to the blue girl, kneeling on the floor not much further away from him.

 

     The two of them, alone in this foreign world.

 

     God, he misses Pepper.

 

     Pepper, who he isn’t even sure if she is alive or dead.

 

     No need to focus on that tiny detail just yet.

 

     Tony can’t breathe.

 

     Focus, focus on the android.

 

     He puts on a brave face and gets up, bleeding inside but oh so very hallow.

 

     “You’re malfunctioning.”

 

     “Well…I wasn’t functioning in the first place, now was I?” she wheezes. Tony fishes out a flashlight, holds it close to the burn on her face, sizzling as if she is Thor and it’s normal to have electric currents dancing on your skin.

 

     “I couldn’t save her.” She whispers, once he is elbow deep in her back, trying to reconfigure a system he has never seen before. Wires mixed with vessels and blood and oil filling the gooey mess. He thought he was the disgusting one. He only feels pity for her, the pity he thought that was above him long ago under the surgery lights in his now destroyed Malibu home, back when Pepper was doing the same thing he is doing to this poor poor girl who obviously feels every little touch.

 

     It had been a wake up call then, trying to rise up from his own helplessness and dragging himself back down, down and down, again and again until it led him here, to the edge of nothing.

 

     The Stark prodigy who could fix anything.

 

     Save anyone.

 

     “I couldn’t save any of them.”

 

 ***

 

     Loki finds them on the fourth day. Days work differently on Titan but he still has a functioning watch so he keeps to Earth time to take a breather, or force himself to eat something because he hasn’t reached that level of hopelessness just yet, he can’t allow himself to disappear like the others.

 

     Loki comes to them on the fourth Earth day.

 

     Which means Tony has four whole days to himself but with mere essentials and a project in front of him. Fixing things is but a survival strategy at this point.

 

     Helping Nebula, rewiring her from the bare minimum helps him as well, allows him to focus his attentions. The cave wasn’t the first he had done it, he has done the same ever since he was a child, holed himself somewhere and built stuff until it didn’t hurt less necessarily, but things became out of focus, numb but the object of his upmost attention. 

 

     His excessive research into Barnes and his own body’s reaction to the arch reactor helps, but even with the labs back at home he can only guess how Nebula has been wired, a patch up work is more accurate for her than a lab experiment. Yinsen had patched Tony up to endure to the heat of the desert, Hydra had made Barnes for easy control, with Nebula there is nothing but neglect and pain without purpose.

 

     She tells him about the sum of her parts as he goes through them one by one, shame never there to begin with or perhaps robbed from her at such a young age that she no longer knows how to remember.

 

     She tells him how Thanos robbed her of a family she has no memory of, made her and her sister call him father, made them fight against one another. She tells him how she always lost, sometimes willingly because she had been too broken to fix and Gamora, her sister, still had a chance.

                             

     Tony listens but does not know what to say anything besides sorry. Years of neglect he has suffered in the hands of his father seem almost meaningless, though a part of him is aware that he was nothing but a science project like Nebula, his father’s greatest achievement but never his son.

 

     Tony knows.

 

     It just doesn’t seem fair to compare.

 

     Loki finds them on the fourth day, on a spaceship made of ice. Tony would say something witty if he hadn’t already gone through his last supply of water yesterday. He is as blue as Nebula is inside the ship but as he comes down Tony can see his skin change color and the face he sees would have made him have a panic attack in different past, but he no longer remembers how to feel anything akin to panic.

 

     Instead, Loki offers him water in a glass of ice. His neck is still blue and purple and unlike the intricate tattoos he had moments ago these look distinctly like finger prints.

 

     Tony finds himself smiling.

 

     The god of mischief smiles back.

 

***

 

     “I saw you.” Tony tells him, later inside the ice cold spaceship, as the magician tries to salvage whatever is left of his innards just like Tony did for Nebula, there is no privacy, no decency left anymore between them. Loki’s hand is literally inside him but whatever he does seems to be working as he is feeling warm and fuzzy all over. He has explained to him before fisting his intestines that this part of his magic he has inherited his mother, who had been one of the greatest healers of their people before she perished, shortly followed by all those they held dear.  

    

     “Every night I saw you in my nightmares. I thought, I thought they were because of you but it was him. It was _him._ He did the same to you didn’t he?”

 

     “Yes.” He answers after a while, wiping his hand on his leather pants. Then he proceeds to tell him about the scepter and the Chiutari and how he woke up after Hulk had redecorated Tony’s penthouse suit with him.

 

     Keeping a close eye on Nebula sleeping on a slab of ice next to them, Tony listens

 

     and understands.

 

***

 

     Loki cries.

 

     There is nothing wrong with crying of course, but it’s not an action he would associated with the god of all that is crazy. Yet he cries, furious tears that he does not want to give up - _he has given up all that he has already, what more will they take away from him, can take away from him?-_ He grudgingly tells him about how Thanos has ambushed them and threatened to crush Thor’s skull in his palm and-

 

     “I thought I hated him enough to let go. To live.”

    

     He wipes away a stray tear, a maniacal laughter threatens to break out of him, slipping away, always away.

 

     “Turns out I was wrong. He had to have everything. Even me at the end.”

 

     Tony had thought he had seen the depth of love Thor had for Loki, Thor who had mourned his brother with his dark hair braided in his own and his sigil on his vanguards ever since he had proclaimed Loki dealt with.

 

     He knows now that he has never understood, just how deeply their devotion ran, on both sides.

 

     “I died for him and you know what scares me Stark? I wanted him dead for so long but if I was given the same choices again and again and a million times over I would still trade my pathetic worthless life for his.”

 

     Loki looks him in the eyes, the last of his magic ebbing into Nebula where she lies, her breathing finally slowed down from the harsh sobs she had been fighting for days.

 

     It is the brightest and the saddest thing he has ever seen.

 

     “What does that make me, huh?”

 

***

 

     “You know you two are pretty similar. Shadowed by the golden sibling in the eyes of the tyrant father. Now the father I understand but the sibling…well there was always this undying devotion to Captain America but…”

 

    Loki told them about his plan once they had been securely located to deep space, of magic that was so old and so dangerous that even he hadn’t dared to touch before. Now he asks them to tag along with him, to suffer as he will because this is the only option they have left.

 

     “Shut it Stark. You don’t understand what we are risking.”

 

     “We are not risking a damn thing Reindeer Games, they are all dead!” he shouts at him.

 

     “Thor isn’t…and your lady she yet lives with the babe.”

 

     Tony thinks that he knew, he knew back at park and even before and he knows that Pepper had known as well. But it matters no more, this is not a life they can lead, not anymore.

 

     It will never be enough.

 

     “Do you think you’d be enough for him? After all that he has lost?”

 

     Thor is just as lost in the shadows as Tony is, as they all are, trying not to drown in the ashes of billions who lost their lives for their own incompetence.

 

     Loki puts the ship on autopilot and takes a deep breath before summoning whatever power or magic he needs.

 

     “I wouldn’t risk this if I had.”

 

     *

 

     “Frigga, my mother, taught me this. For situations so dire, for when the Norns have turned their backs upon us…all my life with all that I’ve gone through I never thought it was worth this because Thor would somehow prevail, Odin would prevail and there would be no need for Loki’s feeble magic. I’m warning you again, we might kill all of them with the littlest mistake…”

 

“The butterfly effect, we get it.”

 

“Your child Stark, she might never exist!”

 

She?

 

“And yet they all may live”.

 

Nebula stares at them both, unblinking dead eyes devoid of all emotion though her trembling fingers are clenched on her pants, mouth in a tight line.

 

***

 

    He opens his eyes, in the vault. Hands upon the Casket, two by two, hands of blue, and Odin’s heavy gaze bearing him down.

 

    Last time they stood here, he denied his name.

 

    Last time he stood here, he brought upon Ragnarok.

 

    This time, he falls to his knees, tears trickling down, the word itself feels like the worst poison on his tongue that he can never swallow down.

 

    “Father...”

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

_This is what might have happened:_

Little feet are heavy on the glass stairs, clad by teddy bear slippers. The pink pajama bottoms are the first in his peripheral vision, upon seeing which he gives the drill to Dummy willingly.

 

“Hi baby girl, why are you not in your fifth dream hmm?”

 

Huge eyes stare at him under messy pigtails, her lips lost beneath baby teeth. She holds a Hulk plushie in her tiny hands and the glass door opens automatically as she drags her feet inside. Coming closer, she puts her head in his lap, urging him to pick her up.

 

“Tell me about this Daddy,” she asks with a whisper pointing at the arm on the table illuminated by harsh surgery lights.

 

“Well, Morgan bear, this is a present for your Uncle Bucky… see we have this little game with auntie Shuri…”

 

She falls asleep in his arms, lost in schematics and numbers and Tony takes a screwdriver from the table gingerly and motions Friday to zoom in on a particular section of the fingers with a fond smile on his face, and works to the sound of soft snores.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is what we deserved, just saying...


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...what happened to the Valkyrie anyways?   
> (and side note, wouldn't she and Sif be very very cute?)

“You expect me to believe this… _lunacy_?”

 

              It is the same throne room he has stood in for 1500 years before the Dark Elves came, before their sister revealed their fathers shame for the whole world to see, before he brought on Ragnarok and finally destroyed it for once and all. But still, he has spent a whole life within these walls, under the huge columns that threaten to swallow him, the poor Jotunn runt, after all these years. Back then he hadn’t even known the reason why he felt so small. Yes, he had always been in the shadows of a stronger older brother, belittled by his warrior friends, but looking back the reason why he never believed Thor’s encouragements seem to be an innate failure of sorts. Not for the lack of trying but a mere miscalculation of nature that has born him so much less compared to his own brethren.

 

              Loki isn’t sure if it is better this way or not. He is lucky that he has never given himself enough time to dwell upon it.

 

              Odin stares at him, with that one eye that Loki once believed capable of seeing eternity, but as blind to the curse Thanos was about to unleash on the universe as the rest of them. Without the magic Loki has put upon him, a curtain of almightiness and invincibility in such a degree that only a small child can bestow upon a father, just as Odin had cast this Aesir form upon his own body for so long, he finally sees his father as he really is.

 

              An arrogant old fool, who is yet to mourn and learn.

 

              But a powerful arrogant fool none the less.

 

              “For a long time, I didn’t expect anything from you. I knew you were wrong, yes, but more than that I was just so angry.”

 

              The last time, he killed his blood father for this man to accept him as a real son. Now, though emotional turmoil is heavy in his heart, his thoughts are focused on one purpose alone and he knows that Laufey can be helpful given the right incentive, if not Loki might do the killing publicly this time. It is not something he prefers to do given the chance, but at least it would give him the power to usurp the throne.

 

              First, he needs to deal with Odin and his lies.

 

              A small part of him still yearns for resolution.

 

              But all the same, his soul yearns for Thor more.

 

              He can make this right.

 

              Make all their mistakes right.

 

              He needs to make Odin understand the stakes of the game they are about to enter without Thor barging in on them, or before the old fool feigns to go to sleep. He can see Odin leaning on the throne even now, his control over the power his being held so painfully, so laughably poor that Loki doesn’t know why he spent so long longing to be just like him.

 

              “You don’t understand. First, we uncovered the lies. The ones you told about me I mean. Then I fell, and all the same, we thought good, because at least we knew the truth.”

 

              He takes a deep breath in and hates himself for how his lips tremble as the warm Asgardian air passes by his lips, so different from the unimaginable cold of the space as Thanos held him up by the neck and suffocated the life out of him. He had thought it would have been unimaginable for a frost giant to tremble at cold, but perhaps it was like a ghost limb, the memory of snow upon Aesir skin, that had made him react so. Made him panic at the idea of freezing to death when he was born to thrive in the cold.

 

“Then came Hela and Thanos and now _we are all gone_.”

 

              It is easy to see the flicker in Odin’s eye now that he knows what to look for, after looking at the same face in the mirror hours upon hours and analyzing every mimic and twitch of muscle he can remember. He knows that Odin knew more about Ragnarok than he ever let on.

 

              Perhaps he even knew about the beast that would soon capture his adopted, useless son for his own pleasure. Thinking about it brings up too many memories, too much pain he has no time to dwell upon or relive. The question of whether his father allowed his suffering is not one he needs answered.

 

              Not when he knows that the answer won’t be what he is looking for.

 

              “Father.” Loki begs, because he can no longer afford to be above it. “We are all dead.”

 

              Odin sits then, it’s as if the veil of doubt has been lifted from his old frame at the same time as the mask of ignorance. Loki thinks Odin hasn’t regarded him like this ever since he was a child, unbloodied by either lies or knives that he would become so known for.

 

              “Then it wasn’t you.”

 

              A couple of years ago, not much but a mere heartbeat ago Loki thinks that this admission would have hurt. Proof that his father had expected his betrayal all along. But, he thinks, now that he has witnessed Odin’s shortcomings, now that he has another king that he _willingly_ wants to serve, instead of rage he feels a cool relief washing over him.

 

              He can be above his anger.

 

              He can make this work.

 

              _He will make this work._

 

              “It was me who lit the flame, upon Thor’s orders.”

 

              “You agree then, that it was his place to take the mantle of the king.”

 

              “Not now… but he did grow into it, eventually.” The admission is bitter upon his tongue, though not for the reasons Odin thinks it would be. “Though I’m not sure which relative’s demise finally did the trick. Mine or mothers.”

 

              “The Queen…”

 

              “Taken by the Dark Elves…when you had chained me in the dungeons, leaving her defenseless.”

 

              _You couldn’t have saved her…_ he thinks.

_I would have died trying, for her._

Odin nods once and once alone. One ugly white brow drawn tight with unreleased anguish, his fingers around his staff whiter than snow. Loki has not the time nor the wish to comfort him before someone walks in upon them.

_“_ We need Thor and his merry band away. Thor needs to go to Midgard. And there is a Valkerie, Brunhillde. She drinks her pain away on the planet of Skaar. You need to send for her.”

 

              He can hear distant footsteps now, the words coming out of his mouth matching up with the rhythm of heavy boots, voice down to a hurried whisper. The king nods once again to let him know that it will be done as he requested, the expression eerily same to the one he gave when he finally relented and brought in unicorn tears from Allfheim for him more than a thousand years ago after much begging and tears.

 

              A surrender to helplessness.

 

              He turns to go away, hair and cape billowing behind him and has to remember the great draft of the open doors isn’t the same thing as a destroyed spaceship. He has to go before Thor arrives from yet another hunt.

 

              Odin stops him, as he plans his way out of the grand throne room, eyes only seeing the broken murals on the ceiling, searching traces for Hela behind portraits of false happiness.

 

              “Your mother will know, once she sees you.”

 

              Loki doesn’t answer.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing many different POVs, realizing that there isn't a single character in MCU broken in some way or the other...  
> like seriously, no one.

              It’s not a sudden realization that this journey to the little-known armpit of civilization shouldn’t be as draining and painful, but there is a deep ache down in his bones that cold Norway weather can’t quite manage to subdue. Had Loki been a little more sentimental – or a little bit more honest to himself about his feelings- he would have called it homesickness. Longing for a place that he never belonged to in the first place, a place he can no longer return to because there is no one left to welcome him home.

 

              Asgard stands tall still, but nonetheless, it stands at the very edge of destruction.

 

              For all intents and purposes, Loki knows that it no longer exists or at least will cease to do so if he does nothing but too long for his mothers embrace or Thor’s warm chapped lips upon his brow.

 

              But there is also this psychical sensation of pain he loathes to acknowledge, something this son of Odin has only associated with the Titan. Loki has spent his whole life as a prince of Asgard, the apples of Idunn and his mother's gentle touch never too far away, even back when he was locked up in the dungeons of the damned palace. Whatever injury he has sustained upon the battlefield, if not healed instantly by his own hand, had perished the moment he had set foot upon his father’s halls.

 

              This feeling, this deep settling nausea and ache, he has only felt under Thanos’ hospitality, and it hunts him across time and space, even from a reality undone by Loki’s own hand.

 

              It’s one more reminder that his work is yet to come.

 

              Sitting in this dark inn with ale at hand near dawn brings forth a couple of realizations he doesn’t quite feel ready to face.

 

              First, even though this is Stark’s home planet, surrounded by sensations and language he can sort of comprehend he is the one who feels most at home among their make-believe trio. His years and knowledge over the others sitting at the same table is even more apparent once they have settled down and actually started to talk about things, and though surprising after all that they went through Stark refuses to take charge as he always does with the Avengers, even with Thor, and gives the reins to Loki to take.

 

              Secondly, he can finally understand the commanding presence Stark has, even without any royal claim. His money and fame put him to the status of loyalty, so much so that he has to buy the inn to buy the silence of the innkeeper, his work even cut harder than a prince who might just buy secrecy with subtle threats of treason. At this time Stark hasn’t held the mantle of Ironman long but all the same, Loki can feel and respect the persona he has created as a businessman, his keen mind a rival to his own even though he is but a mere human. Loki understands Thor’s devotion to the honorable Captain Rodgers to whom honor and duty come so easily and the burden so naturally manageable unlike Thor who had been so easily swayed for far too long before circumstances and Loki himself had forced his hand. But Loki understands why it's Tony Stark who deserves to lead the Avengers, why he had been the one called the Earth’s mightiest hero, why he had been their own chosen brother under Thanos’s torment.

 

              Nebula too pays him a respect that she doesn’t seem to bestow upon Loki, though it had been them both who fixed her up enough to continue her mission of revenge. He looks at her, in jeans and jacket that Thor used to prefer for his Midgardian adventures and has to swallow bile creeping up his throat.

 

              She sits there, ale in her pale human hands, nails painted a deep dark blue, with pale green eyes and long red hair – they remind her of her sister she told him the first time she looked into the mirror after he was done with her, Loki understands as he always carries a lock of Thor’s hair wherever he goes- He knows that he did the exact same thing to her as Odin did to him as a babe.

 

              Wiped the blue for pale white in the name of conformity.

 

              A lie that erases all the colors in life for the sake of preserving something that just doesn’t seem worthy enough.

 

              Perhaps wiping out emotions as well because Nebula seems calmer, more subdued in this human form, a cold beauty as opposed to the cold ice and ocean blue rage that had threatened to swallow the whole of Titan before Loki’s magic got to her.

 

              Robbed her of true potential.

 

              But no, he is projecting these feelings on to her, Nebula is not him. She is still herself under the disguise of spotless porcelain flesh. Loki is not his parents and as it always was his magic is too feeble to undo the damage Thanos inflicted upon her. Electricity still buzzes under the magic, every neuron firing is another agony Stark told him back when she was finally asleep in the silent depth of space, as Thanos had wanted it to be so. Unlike an ally Stark has who has been freed of such a torture caused by his arm, for Nebula it’s everywhere. Neither Stark’s tools nor Loki’s magic is powerful or careful enough to fix the boobytraps Thanos laid in her brain.

 

              Perhaps in time, Stark told back then _, but no need to give her false hope._

              Noticing his gaze upon Nebula’s twitching fingers Stark moves to give him another shot of what he previously identified as tequila with a knowing look.

 

              The broken man behind a golden suit of armor.

 

              Oh, yes. More than anyone he has met in his journeys Loki respects Tony Stark.

 

              “You do realize that this… thing in your chest is killing you.”

 

              “Yes, I’m taking care of that. Hopefully faster this time around.”

 

              Loki has spent dozens of years learning and training in the art of poisons during a particularly boring and boorish siege Thor laid upon some desolate piece of land at the middle of nowhere in Odin’s name just after the came of age. He has spent many more under Frigga’s tutelage learning the art of healing. He tells himself that it’s the excitement of new knowledge and the distant sense of duty that a physician of many years would have for a patient and nothing to do with a need to care that he feels for this unwilling comrade. He has already healed the man once, it’s only natural to have the sense of duty carrying on. As long as Stark is in his vicinity, he is after all, kind of at least, responsible for his wellbeing.

 

              “If you are sure-“

 

              “You know, I have done this before. Granted I had a bit of help from Natasha and Shield but this time I can do it in a more cost efficient and healthy way. Just let us settle this first.”

 

              “Well, we have already settled the company.”

 

              That is after all the reason why they are in this country. Stark told him the way to have power on Earth and as he can’t conquer it through war, or run as the president of some powerful country, the easiest and the cleanest way is to build himself up as Stark’s father did. Having enough capital and power combined with a good image is what Loki needs to have his voice heard in this strange new land.

 

              “You need shareholders, lawyers, the press… and what about Thor? Does he know of your new ventures?”

 

              Stark has been patient helping him set up aliases, fake the money and buy the land. Providing necessary knowledge and connections every step of the way. But Loki is still largely unfamiliar with this new way of doing things. Stark calls it “training wheels”, which does nothing but to remind Loki that he needs a drivers license even though he can teleport himself to anywhere, whenever he wants.

 

              “You think you can help me?”

 

              “Oh, not me. Perhaps Pepper, if we let her in.”

 

              “Do you really want to? Ready to?”

 

              Loki isn’t sure if it has been as hard for Stark to come back, after all Tony hadn’t lost quite so many people, no its not right to compare but he can’t help himself he has always been so very selfish. But Loki has left Asgard without even being in the same room as Thor and Stark has to go back to his wife every night, with an empty belly and an empty heart which holds no memories of the last decade of suffering and happiness, no matter how much love the woman feels for him.

 

              “No need to worry about me.” Stark says nonchalantly, stuffing some chips into his mouth.

 

              “So about this company of yours…”

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't sure if I needed to divide the chapters this much, but in the end, I'm not even following a specific timeline and I fear change of povs within chapters will be even more confusing.
> 
> *  
> This chapter is Nebula.
> 
> Weirdly, I have more problems with female characters, Nebula I'm pretty much making up but Natasha and Pepper give me a lot of pause with all the double standards and misogyny. As always, any feedback is welcome.

              Nebula finds this role of the secretary particularly hard, though Loki assures her that it is but a front and his magic will take care of the most of it. It is important for them to be accessible to Earth and Stark without raising any suspicions. Blending in, being open so that people will accept them and what they will do when the time comes. Now that he is here on his own will and not under Thanos’ s orders he can actually make some good investments and make a good name for himself, he says. He can never be the blond, muscular Avenger the humanity craves, but rugged dark-haired playboy philanthropist image that Stark wants to abandon? Well, there couldn’t be better shoes for him to fill in.

 

              Stark is determined to marry his newly appointed CEO this time, a red-haired woman she kind of resembles now but feels exponentially different from. Even the idea of a female leader to follow makes Nebula like the idea of her. And if she is someone Stark wants to hold on to so dearly, she must certainly matter a lot. The certainty of her worth makes it easier to look up to her, for the right reasons this time, without the threat of pain or promise of absolute obedience, she can copy and learn from her, this strange human female role.

 

              She was never trained for the little nuances and the long games unless it meant a prowl after a kill. Even then she never defined herself as a woman, or even as a self to begin with. All of that was taken from her without any choice given. It feels cruel that she should be allowed to discover herself hidden under a false skin, mirroring people whom she knows she can never be like. But even if it’s freedom inside another prison, she will take it because that is what needs to be done.

 

              It's unsettling to realize that she can actually be helpful for once, that she can be something more than a hand that destroys, blindly following the orders of a mad father who never felt anything akin to love for her.

 

              The Nebula who had lived in this timeline would be deadly jealous of Gamora for the love that she now surely knows that their father harbored for her.

 

              This Nebula just wants to look Gamora in the eye again. Demand apologies for all the tears, maybe fight a lot so that they can finally reach some semblance of sisterhood and leave this hate behind. So that they can both have the family they were so brutally torn away from, that both so desperately yearned for all these years. For all of that to happen, she needs Gamora alive.

 

              So Loki gives her a skin that gets burned easily under the sun, heels that she has to learn how to walk and if necessary run in. Unpractical clothes like dresses that Thanos used to make her sister wear but never forced her to and jewelry adorns this foreign white skin. She learns how to put makeup on it to feel more like herself which is just ironic. She adjusts to the feeling of soft skin under soft touches even though she can still feel all the mechanical parts of her buzzing beneath the human flesh.

 

              And they gather allies as well. People she has never heard of before but from all over the universe. One of the Warriors Three, Fandral, starts to join Loki’s adventures in Midgard pretty early on, claiming that Thor’s recent conquest is too basic and brutal for his taste and that he has taken a liking to the fashion Loki prefers here with soft silks and sharp black edges. The rest eventually follow when Odin sends Thor to Midgard to learn as his brother does before he takes the throne for himself.

 

              In turn, Thor brings in Erik Selvig and Jane who seem to get along well with Loki, at least better than she manages to and she is being sent to the United States to help Stark make a necessary alliance with Hank Pym, partly because Loki can’t bear to keep her close to Thor.

 

              All the while she and Loki work in covert assignments to Shield and Hydra, people that she doesn’t particularly care about but told that need to be destroyed before they cause unnecessary trouble for the Avengers. And finally, after Captain Steve Rodgers is awakened from the ice, Nebula is sent after the Winter Solider.

 

              Now, after keeping her distance from everything, from Loki and Stark and her sister with whom she has cut all unnecessary communications with, this is the assignment that hits close.

 

              This, she knows as soon as Stark puts the file in front of her, will be the one to break her barriers.

 

              “He is dangerous, unpredictable, alone.”

 

              “Perhaps, for it’s the best”, she tells him over the table that now harbors over twelve close confidants, who all have their own specific parts in this long and complicated game two geniuses have spent months laying over, parts of which she can’t even begin to comprehend.

 

              Dangerous, she can deal with.

 

              “At least I will have you to fix me up.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning: Mentions of prostitution, internalized misogyny, and suicidal thoughts. 
> 
> Small interlude, Natasha is back.

 

The first time Natasha meets Bruce Banner, she and Clint have been working for Stark less than three weeks. Her cover as an assistant for Pepper Potts has blown off as quickly as the new element Stark has managed to invent and after he is out of surgery, he offers her and her partner a job, giving hundreds of pages of files as evidence why working for Shield is no better than working for the KGB.

 

              He has Maria Hill standing behind him next to Colonel James Rhodes and new arrows specifically designed for Clint on the table, making her realize that this man had known who she was all along.

 

              Natasha doesn’t trust Tony Stark but follows Pepper’s orders all the way to Calcutta to recruit Bruce Banner a.k.a. The Hulk to Stark Industries in his name.

 

              Funny thing, this life of hers.

 

              The first time Natasha meets Bruce Banner, she fucks him on the floor of a straw shed he uses as a makeshift clinic for children and the elderly.

 

              She has always been impulsive by nature but calculative by training. Perhaps it’s Stark’s effect, cutting off the shackles the law has on her. A part of her is still afraid that Fury is after her, tough Stark assures them that is not the case. Clint has been sent after Thor and his friends, undercover in Shield while she plays a different sort of game now.

 

              “He is not a mark Romanoff.” Stark had said as she was boarding a brand new Starkjet, though it had been Pepper who had informed her of this mission, citing that Tony was too busy tinkering with some new robot or the other.

 

              “In fact, he is a friend. So please treat him as one.”

 

              There was a kind, almost pitying look in his eyes that she couldn’t give any meaning to.  It wasn’t something she was used to seeing on Stark’s face and it was certainly not one she was used to being directed at her. Still, it was harder to shake off than she would have thought.

 

              The thing is, Natasha was born and bred to seduce people. Men, women, old or young it didn’t particularly matter to her, or so she had thought. The shame of the act and her own autonomy had been robbed from her at such a young age, leaving behind a clump of flesh that was supposed to manipulate and squeeze out the necessary information.

 

              But Stark wasn’t after some secret formula that Banner might possess. She really did believe that it was the scientist and not the monster he was interested in.

 

              So Natasha took a shot with Stark. She took a jet to Indıa, wore some comfy boots with jeans outside in what seemed like a million years. She put her hair up, removed the makeup and for the first time since whenever she had no intention or obligation whatsoever to seduce her target.

 

              (She seems to have done it anyway.)

 

              But she also never expected to find this. This ragged shell of a man who hadn’t properly seen a shower since last week, hadn’t put a razor to his skin for just as long.

 

              “Dr. Banner” she had called him, as he was in the middle of cleaning some nasty looking wound on some old woman’s back. “I’m here representing Stark Industries.” Saying that had felt like she had gained her identity back. Though lost in some capitalistic bullshit, it was finally real.

 

              She was finally solid.

 

              “Call me Bruce.” He had answered. He wasn’t wearing any gloves or protective gear. And she realized, he didn’t need to. The Hulk was probably immune to whatever deadly disease he might face here.

 

              Shield had kept close tabs on him, well still did. She knew that this was a man who had tried his very best to end it all and survived through it.

 

              She was selfish, at that moment, wishful.

 

              Perhaps he could also endure her.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony is trying to protect Pepper, Pepper wants to protect Tony from himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've read a lot of posts about how Tony and Pepper have a toxic relationship and what a bitch she is for leaving him. I just wanted to say, though Tony Stark is dear to me than my very own heart if you are in a relationship that makes you feel stressed, anxious or fearful all the time you have the right to say I'm out. Tony doesn't have an easy personality to get along with and has a ton of baggage even without Ironman.   
> Pepper loves him, but as he struggles with his life so does she. 
> 
> I mean...just my two cents.

She starts the conversation with a warm smile on her face and a warm mug of herbal tea sitting on the table, because Tony can scare more easily than a child or a stray kitten and Pepper is about done with all of this and simply doesn’t have enough time to spare for whatever he is going through.

 

              The devil on her shoulder, sounding remarkably like Obadiah Stane whispers, _“You are being a cruel bitch, Miss Potts.”_ And it’s true in a way but Pepper is so used to walking this road alone, be it following Tony’s steps or leading him one hand firmly pulling him forward by the ear. And yes, she does love him and is in love with him but that has always been the case. This unattainable wish for a relationship with a man she can never hope to fix enough to be able to function as a normal human being.

 

And that was before Afghanistan, before Obie and Ironman broke whatever cracked walls Tony had tried so long to keep intact with alcohol and whatever distraction he had found for himself that week. Pepper has tried, she really did. She does it every day still, knowing perfectly that her efforts are always going to go to vain in some way or the other.

 

              So, it’s even more horrifying to realize the light had just completely gone out in his sunken eyes one day, which was followed by all kinds of manic decisions like handing the company over to her or trying to put a ring on her finger.

                   

              And it’s the ring that had finally tipped her off, scared her enough to take this drastic action. Yes, she loved Tony with all her heart and even believed him when he said the same thing with a smile plastered on his perpetually tired face.

 

              But Tony hugged her tight enough to bruise at night and continued to do so until she woke up as if he was afraid of her running away. Then woke up, made her breakfast with waffles or pancakes, never tried to feed her strawberries once and went to collect new companies, new elements, and Nobels at full speed.

 

              Pepper wished that this meant that things were finally looking up for him. But she knew that it was a trainwreck waiting to happen.

 

              So Pepper said no.

 

              She put the ring on the table, put a warm cup of chamomile tea next to it, and took Tony’s hands to her own instead.

_“A cutthroat bitch…”_ Obadiah continued whispering, because she could see Tony holding the tears in, she could see one escaping the coarse hairs on his cheek to the gray concert tee he was wearing.

 

              Pepper’s heart was breaking for him, breaking for both of them.

 

              But nevertheless, she had to do this.

 

              Even if it meant taking control of Tony as well as the company to save him. He trusted her with everything he had except the reason why he was acting the way he did. Pepper hated herself for pushing him, but she had to make him take this very final step.

 

              “Tony…talk to me. Baby, please…”

 

*

 

              When he proposed to her it wasn’t the extravagant affair she would have expected. There were no fireworks for instance, there wasn’t even champagne or a hundred and one roses. The ring wasn’t some abomination that would have been too heavy to lift let alone wear. In fact, it was elegant with a thin band and a small but obviously expensive stone that suited her tastes much better than they did his.

 

              Which only proved her point that this was not her Tony, not this man who put her tastes above his own, not this man who no longer thought himself the center of the world. No, these qualities she might have searched for and appreciated in another man but take those away there was nothing left in Tony to keep him standing, no self-preservation mechanism he could depend upon.  He had to be like that, holding onto his priorities first, so he could help others without burning himself out.

 

              These last couple of months only proved her point. The more Tony delved into his social projects, the more he locked himself into his lab instead of partying and having fun or just being his normal self-destructing self. But this wasn’t the rebirth of a billionaire who had seen the right path, Tony was doing whatever he was doing without any regards to himself.

 

              Day by day, it felt like losing him.

 

              Even though he was there with her more than he had ever been in the last decade, catering her needs instead of tasking her to cater to his own, it was obvious that something was missing, as if something had gone terribly wrong somewhere along the road without her realizing. She knew that things were bad after the cave, but he had gotten better. At least she had thought he had. But the nightmares and insomnia only grew worse. The more he became the man of iron, the less ironlike became his heart.

 

              At night, he screamed for names she had never heard, missions she could find no record of once she asked Jarvis. And that was only when he fell asleep, which felt like never even though she was sharing his bed for some time now.

 

              She saw his fingers shaking, the dark circles beneath his eyes grew which was followed by whole body tremors and cold limbs that he tried to hide from her by holding warm coffee cups or wearing wool socks that he wouldn’t take off. Though he was more attentive to her needs than ever, he was completely forgoing his own.

 

              Pepper knew that this wasn’t about her, she could but only be a part of it. But whatever game he was playing, she would not be a part of it anymore. She couldn’t keep her silent vigil, at least not without knowing what was going on with him.

 

              If he needed professional help, and it increasingly seemed like the case even though she loathed to admit it, she was the only one in any position to get it for him, even if it meant breaking his heart to more pieces than there already was.

 

              She looked into his hopeful eyes, which looked more tired than happy. They looked if he was afraid of something, something worse than her saying no, not merely anxious as a man waiting an answer to his proposal but someone waiting for some inevitable sad ending.

 

              No, this didn’t feel right at all.

 

              So, she did the best she could. Instead of putting her hand out for him to put the ring on her finger, she reached out and closed her fingers around it. She pulled the ring from his frozen hands and put it on the table.

 

              As she had feared, he wasn’t shocked. He wouldn’t even look her in the eyes. He just looked defeated.

 

*

              “Tony if you are serious about this… Really serious about it, then you need to tell me what’s going on.”

 

              His hands are ice cold in hers, even though Jarvis always makes sure to keep the rooms at perfect temperature.  He gulps a couple of times, but no words come out. She thinks he is trying to keep bile down. Finally, after a minute he opens his mouth, and a wet gasp comes out.

             

              She gently puts her hands on his neck, pulls his forehead close to hers until he breaths in the same air. Rubs her fingers in circles until they manage to regulate their breathing together. Nice and slow, the only thing she can do at this point is to be careful.

 

              “Tony, listen to me. I love you. I _love you so much._ But you need to tell me ok? You can tell me.”

 

              Tears are streaming down his eyes, wetting her wrists. Tears are streaming down her eyes, wetting his t-shirt.

 

              “Please.”

 

              Tony takes another shaky breath, it's so close to her lips that she thinks she might be the one shaking.

 

              “Okay…” he whispers. His hands find her hips under her shirt, trying to find an anchor. He takes a breath in, more surely this time. “Yeah, okay.”

 

              And he starts talking.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm at a place where my emotional state doesn't match the characters. It's not their fault.

He leaves his wife back at home because he trusts Nat but also because he has seen the hammer trapped in industrial concrete, made to withstand nuclear attacks. As for Stark, he has never put much faith in the rich nor he plans to do so. But he had believed in religion once and it had carried him through the roughest patches of his shitty childhood. So, seeing something divine again, even if it is the pagan kind the priest he took as a literal father once would scoff at, makes a warm feeling bloom inside his chest.

 

He wants to be a part of a community, part of a belief again.

 

He should be grateful to have his family, but they can never quite understand, _no it’s not their fault_ , Clint just knows that he will never be able to bring himself to tell them all of it. For the last couple of years, he has at least had Natasha, but their solitary understanding has its days where it keeps them afloat and then there are days it’s what threatens to bring them under. It took them a long time to accept that though they might try, they were too broken themselves to fix the other completely. He knows that he would, without a doubt, die for Natasha. He is just not sure if he could live for her if it ever came to that, or more importantly make her keep on living if that responsibility ever completely befell on him. Working under Loki, however dangerous might it be can give him some closure, can put some meaning, however small to the open wounds neither his family or friendship can quite heal. This feels like a step in the right direction, seeing the blind trust in Natasha’s eyes, knowing that it doesn’t come easily. He can follow her here and it can become their salvation.

 

Or if it comes to that, and the cynic in him tells him it’s a good idea to prepare and prepare well for that possibility, if he can’t save Nat from it, then they can drown together.

 

He has known enough of men and their ambitions to realize that Tony Stark, however attached to him Nat has seemingly have gotten over the last couple of months, is but a false idol, who can bend and warp within his own ambitions, as men of money and influence most often do, so much so that he becomes unrecognizable to even himself, a shell of coins and capital in the end.  He has already once and though the ordeals he went through in Afghanistan has changed him, challenged and shaped him to be the best he could possibly be, there is no guarantee that the same folly won’t find him twice.

 

But perhaps, with the actual Norse Pantheon behind him, facing an undefeatable foe can be something that he could accomplish. The circus freak, the assassin, finally finding a higher purpose in life. So he says his goodbyes to his wife and the baby, leaving them safe and away even though Stark is somehow – obviously- aware of their existence and invites them to stay at his place with all of them.

 

Both Stark and Loki seem uncomfortable at their first encounter, uneasy to say the least for all involved except Natasha who keeps her calm, emotionally distancing herself from the other occupants of the room and the other redhead who stands by Loki’s side. But he puts this uneasiness aside, categorizing it at once as one of the many instances when people turned a blind eye to him. _The orphan, the dirty one, the circus freak, don't worry he can't hear your insults and even if he does he is too stupid to understand them. Free show for all, come see the freak. He will make you feel nauseous inside but you can't look away from the spectacle._ It makes no difference to him that one more person sees him as such, having learned long ago that being perceived as less than you really are can always be used to your advantage.

 

Still, Loki, after giving Stark a side-eye glance which no one in the room mises, shakes his hand firmly. His world, though so much more complicated ever since these men came into his life and in total chaos for so much longer, finally feels grounded.

 

*

 

              They leave in the middle of the night, standard procedure for a covert op that doesn’t really have any urgency but has to be dealt with swiftly. Stark has circles under his eyes seven feet deep and his fingers are tapping the glass table rhythmically, a nervous tick to be sure. Loki is absent from what they have tentatively labeled “the control room” but Nebula is here, wearing tights and a blue sweatshirt, totally the opposite of the power suits she prefers to wear during the day but somehow they make her look all the more stronger. Natasha sits next to her in a tight jumpsuit she prefers, made from the same material of top he is currently wearing, fiber strengthened with Stark tech. Both have their red hairs in buns, which look like two angry red eyes in the grey and white muted room. A monster with threatening red eyes, making sure they do their jobs right. 

 

              The debriefing has been going on for more than three hours now, Clint’s coffee remains cold and untouched on the table. Stark has looked them straight in the eye and said that this was all or nothing. Any challenge they might face was unacceptable, nothing was to be insurmountable. Granted Stark told them this with a knot in his throat, sitting in the clandestine room with three assassins – Clint has never directly spoken with Nebula but he knows, he knows that they recognize each other- and he has given them the permission, the order to kill if it was to be necessary.

 

              For a guy who claimed to be different than Shield, different than the weapons mogul the media has long since portrayed him to be, the protector of the world peace, the words came easily when it came down to it. While Stark was obviously uncomfortable, he didn’t hesitate. The inkling that Clint constantly pushes to the back of his mind threatens to break surface once again, the attempted action causing silent warning bells to ring in his head. He doesn't know to what extent the trust between them goes, doesn't know if or when it will snap.

 

              He puts a hand on Natasha’s shoulder, coming to stand up behind her so he can face Stark directly.

 

              “Consider it done.”

 

*

 

              Tony puts a hand on his shoulder, which he probably means to be comforting but only serves to agitate him more. And when it’s him in the question, it’s never a good idea to get more agitated than he normally is.

 

              Tony has raced against time and Shield for this, that he knows. They bring in the ice cube a little bit after 4 in the morning, on a night where the fog is so up high that they remain unseen on the cameras. There is not a single sound in the compound. Not the chitter chatter of sleep-deprived assistants or some explosion Tony has set for the umpteenth time. Funny enough, it’s harder to sleep when there is no sound to disturb you. 

 

              Even funnier, he still finds himself drooling on his papers having spent the last 36 hours neck deep in some formula that will no doubt prove to be faulty once again.

 

              It’s Barton who comes to wake him up, he has been on the late night mission as well -which actually started four late nights ago. When he manages to put a new shirt on and drags himself to the lab he finds Tony at hushed but quick conversation with Natasha.

 

              She gives him a greeting but remains silent otherwise. Whatever happened between them quietened down to nothing the moment she delivered him to Tony, a scientist madder and -if such thing is possible- more full of regrets than himself. And he is one hard man to compare your sins to.

 

              What Tony has presented him in the following days has kept his mind off Natasha, for whom it was probably nothing more than a fling. But standing here in the cold lab, Bruce can feel her hot breath upon his skin. His hand goes to his neck unwillingly where the last of her marks faded days ago, and the thought of scratching it comes second as he wants to caress and recapture the sensation of her mouth there.

 

              But no, not with her watching.

 

              “What do we have here?” he asks finally, wiping the sleep from his eyes and pointing to the middle of the room, where a block of ice is surrounded by various cables and machinery.

 

              Tony clasps his hands together, if he had looked any paler under the fluorescent light, Bruce might have mistaken him for a ghost.

             

              “That doctor, is a living legend.”

 

              Upon the confused stare he gets, he adds, “Well, I hope anyway.” Then he mumbles something along the lines of “ _How hard it could be if Shield did it the first time…”_ Bruce knows he wouldn’t have heard it without his increased Hulk senses. Barton and Natasha certainly seem unbothered. If anything Barton is clearing a knife he randomly manifested from his tight jean pockets and Natasha, God, Natasha is watching him wearily. Bruce hastily turns his eyes, his attention, heck his whole body back to Tony.

 

              Arms crossed over his chest, he doesn’t know if he is trying to keep his emotions well confined within his body or keep himself warm in the snowstorm chill temperature in the lab.

 

              “Bruce Banner-“ he points to the block of ice, “meet Captain Steve Rogers.”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...that was Clint and Bruce.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This particular scene(?) will run through several chapters, as always told by several different characters.

 

She had expected this journey to take her to desolate mountains or rainforests or an underground ring of fighters. Having unlimited resources thanks to her companions means that she covers a great ground without resorting to murder or theft, instead of staying in the dark she can actually stay in luxury hotels and resorts where the food is beyond imaginations – not that she can enjoy it much- and huge pools open 24 hours for her use alone. Though she doesn’t know of luxury much, growing in the shadows of a tyrant has left her with no humility to be either power drunk or ashamed of this new-found status that is dependent on other people’s wealth. She has an unlimited credit card from both Asgard and Stark Industries, both in a complex and headache-inducing merger at the moment. Anyways, the comfort of money and the countless missions have made it easy for her to cover great ground at a short amount of time, giving her the opportunity to visit many cities besides Stark’s various headquarters and Oslo, where Loki leads the majority of his operations.

 

Still, having read the many mission files Stark had hacked from the Hydra database - _undetected of course, now that I stopped trusting everyone at random, I actually know how to do this stuff-_ has painted her a different picture. The hotels she and Loki chose catered to a specific need, to put it more clearly not only you needed money to get in, but the proper class which came to Loki innately, having been born the heir to one throne and raised to potentially assume another. Nebula found herself flailing many times, now accustomed to simpler Earthly customs that Stark and his companions preferred, until she realized acting as she would have with father, damn his name, gave her easier access to many, many closed doors.

 

But many of the target’s kills have been in deserted streets, late nights, empty apartment buildings where it was easier for him to disappear as if he had never existed. In fact, it was impossible to locate and attach him any of them but for the files Hydra had, detailed and even time stamped for each assassination.

 

He doesn’t linger, he doesn’t attend parties.  But somehow Stark’s intel leads her to a hotel in Seoul, South Korea where a presidential address is taking place. The Crown Prince of Wakanda, who is to be King T’Challa by the time Thanos attacks, is there with a pretty girl on his side. Both heavily armed, yet seemingly unaware of the threat looming over them.

 

              But they are not the Winter Soldier’s victims tonight.

 

 Loki is in a black tuxedo next to her, making small talk with future allies. Much harder to decipher than Stark, but somehow less complex, he has been her constant companion over the many months. Building upon the crumbled foundations that they are so very desperate to not slip from their fingers, they have unwillingly forged a bond that Nebula knows will take more than she is willing to admit. Before Nebula has been reserved to only bleed and if necessary, die for her sister. Loki is gradually, even without intention on his behalf, climbing up to take his place next to Gamora. It’s a scary notion for Nebula, who will never admit this to him unless she has to take a bullet for the man, but nevertheless a welcome one. In her solitude, she has managed to let others enter inside the walls of her castle beside her ungrateful, sad sister. Maybe she will never mean as much to Loki as he does to her, but that too is a familiar feeling to Nebula. It lets her ground her feelings towards him, gratitude in her case doesn’t turn into admiration but a fierce need to protect, as she has done many times over the years. She can do the same for Loki, be his guardian in the battle to come. Lay down her life for his if the need arises. And the need has arisen today, she thinks Stark knows at least a part of her feelings, he knows that he will get whatever he needs from her with Loki’s life in possible danger, he trusts her with this more than he trusts himself.

 

Nebula doesn’t know or particularly care about the solider. But she will see this through, step by step as Stark’s plan is. It’s simple enough, it’s human enough that Loki isn’t even concerned in the slightest, even laughing at the seriousness in Nebula’s posture as he watches her from the corner of his eye. He is to take T’Challa out for a late dinner while Nebula takes Barnes out and hopefully brings him back to New York with her.

 

              Princess Shuri is too young to undo the damage that was one to him, so they need to subdue and take him to Captain Rogers before Shield corrupts his mind. Tony was pretty clear on this. Nebula has seen Shuri once, on a reconnaissance mission to Wakanda where she has posed as Pepper’s personal assistant on Natasha’s behalf. As young as Gamora was when father first brought her home, still it was easy to see this girl growing up and becoming one of the brightest minds this world had to offer. Tony’s fingers itched on the window sill as he watched her playing with various technological tools, a disciple worthy of his talents but obviously out of his reach, having been born to a loyal family that didn’t only give her the support and the environment for her talents to flourish, but also a duty to the lands she was born to rule.

 

              Unlike Loki and her who have learned to depend on each other on this foreign soil, there are many connection Tony wishes to forge, many yet he isn’t quite sure how to do properly. There are dozens upon dozens who have their places set in stone for the upcoming battle. The kid Nebula saw briefly on Titan is as little as the princess, Tony won’t even say his name out loud after what happened. Bruce Banner, the green monster Nebula is a bit in awe, a bit in love, bit in disgust with seems to be settling in well, at least better than Thor, who Loki is never sure when it’s a good idea to bring along. Tony’s spies, Natasha, and Clint with whom Nebula gets along with better than anyone are more human than any of them would like, Nebula thinks they are unable to grasp the situation Stark has thrown them in, though they try, they simply remain too human most of the time to be trusted with many of the important stuff. That leaves Stark’s biggest ally and enemy, Steve Rogers. Nebula doesn’t know what they exactly see in him, but even Loki finds him vital to Earth’s last defense, the man who refused to kneel, the man who stood up even to Thanos with nothing but his bare hands.

 

As of this moment Rogers holds no loyalties to the modern world he was awakened to, having Barnes on their side from the start, however damaged could go a long way for Tony to build their relationship on a more solid ground this time. They can no longer afford the divide and the petty spats no matter how much they hurt. Loki can’t cross Thor, Nebula needs Gamora and in no way or form can Tony Stark and Steve Rogers lose faith in each other.

 

Loki holds her arm gently then, steering her attention to something beyond the pleasant conversation they are having with the Wakandan prince and his companion. His thumb thumps three times in quick succession, the mischievous smile on his handsome face never wavering but he has obviously been made aware of the threat lurking behind the curtains before she caught the scent of it.

 

She looks at the carefree smile on his face, perfectly calculated.

 

She wishes she felt nothing.

 

 _Sentiment,_ Loki would sneer. Would there be kindness behind it if she ever confessed?

 

Never mind that now, she has a mission to see through.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My love for Loki is seeping through... there is no pairing there, Nebula is just not used to feeling things in general. Loki and Nebula's .... complicated ... relationship will be a bigger part of the side Thorki story I'm writing.


	12. Chapter 12

_(3 hours earlier)_

              “You’ve got this.” said Stark as Pepper was fixing his hair. He was looking at the mirror, Pepper behind him, nimble fingers arranging the black mess on his head meticulously.  

 

It was a very human thing to do, Nebula found out pretty early on Earth, this constant need to _believe_ , in yourself, in others, in destiny, the greater good or even petty chance to see things through. Driven so long with fear of failure, then the simple notion that things need to be get done, looking forward to things or even feeling certain emotions regarding a mission seem meaningless to her still. Still, she nods along, more for Stark’s sake than hers, it’s him who is nervous about this particular mission anyways.  

 

Stark - _Tony-_  had in-ear sets for them all and Pepper had a shimmering silver dress and heels prepared for her. She had taken a liking for the shoes once she got a hang of them, running in them, though slower than she was used to but perfectly fast in human standards, wasn’t as much of a challenge as she had thought it would be, the pain of it but fleeting as opposed to what she normally went through on a daily basis. Seeing her love for them Pepper and Natasha took her shopping more than once, even Loki accompanying them on an occasion in Hong Kong, creating many unwanted rumors. The dress could spontaneously create knives at her back, much to the glee of Loki when he first saw them. Tony admitted that Loki was the inspiration for that particular trick as it was his favorite in battle.

 

              “Nano-tech. Like my suit remember? I still need to do a bit more tinkering for all that and complete the software for FRIDAY but should be done soon enough.”

 

              Pepper also helped Loki put on a green velvet tie, the huge stone on her finger shining under the fluorescent lights of the room.  Loki had a soft spot for her too, he wasn’t besotted like Tony was nor did he feel the underlining longing Nebula seemed to struggle with whenever she saw the woman. He respected her for the power she seemed to hold so gracefully, he respected her because she was above all things, in this with them without question but not without criticism when things got out of hand. Small, human brain holding knowledge and acceptance beyond her years. Not a genius like Stark he said, but she also wasn’t broken as much. She had been so used to being the glue that held Tony together that she didn’t even blink an eye -at least publicly- once she had to take them in as well. More than anything, it was weird to see someone care, care for them for no other reason than because they wanted to without blood – be it running in their veins or spilled on the ground- compelling them to.

 

              Yes, forging connections… new or old, they all left different but completely changing prints upon their souls, their impact so big that even they- who saw each other daily these days- could see the effects of them taking place in each other. Somehow, this human woman who wasn’t a hero, who wasn’t particularly important in their plain taking arms against Thanos except for her personal importance to the Iron Man had been the most effective of them all, smoothing out all the jagged edges that pained them in the process of simply being together.

 

              “I know you like these small pleasures in life, like good fabric and aesthetics. Unlike this one” she said teasingly, pointing a perfectly manicured finger at Stark who was wearing a particularly old looking black t-shirt still. “So, no need to magic them.”

 

              She was motherly for one thing, or at least the closest person Nebula had ever met to the term. For the last couple of months, she and Loki had largely been based in Norway but as he could teleport them daily, after the main set up had been completed they found themselves staying with Stark and his girlfriend who had started building the Avengers Compound quite frequently. The meals they shared with the two, and later Banner and whoever else that followed much warmer than the dinner meetings they attended at high-end restaurants. Nebula couldn’t stomach many of the foods the couple made her try, but she appreciated it anyway. She appreciated them helping her after when she made herself sick once again after a particularly delicious cheese or chocolate even more. If this was what it meant being a human, with all its disadvantages and aches, it made sense why Quill had been so proud of it or why Thor had insisted so strongly on their protection for many years.

 

              Earth became a safe harbor for her, one she got attached more quickly than she thought she would.

 

              She was supposed to be on a manhunt for Gamora’s ragtag group of friends, but after the deal with Yondu she actually had a lot of time in her hands, many spent under the surgical lights in Stark’s workshop and some spelled into a magical come by Loki and his mother, who according to him, were much closer to each other this time round. _Maybe close enough to prevent her demise..._ was the part left unsaid. She helps out with the great many codes Stark, _Tony,_ has to sort through for Vision, she helps to build a case against Thanos from what she can remember and reconstruct with his help.

 

              Nebula can do all these because she basically has a microchip for a brain, programmed to record everything. It’s one she will have to greatly damage once she returns home to Thanos not to ruin everything after Tony manages to make a back up for her. She knows because she is literally programmed not to forget even the smallest details of things. From all her metal appendages, this is the most damned one. Self-mutilation, as it stands, the least she can do for her sister. So that this curse does not cost her Gamora.

 

              For such a price she’d also think that this eternal space for knowledge would have come with capacity for comprehension. But the fact is she knows nothing beyond the fact that she has a mission and how to properly use the guns on her person and that it’s the right thing to do to bring Barnes – who has been mind-controlled for the better part of a century- back home.

 

              The manipulation, the helplessness she can understand. Empathize. Stark, _Tony,_ told her about the arm as well, attached to his body in such a way designed to cause pain.

 

              “He killed my parents.” He had told her, while tinkering with a part near her left knee, not with any particular purpose but simply hoping he would be able to think of something once he saw what was going on inside the skin – he hadn’t been able to. “But it wasn’t him. I know that.”

 

              “He is a war hero, truly. In chains.”

 

              Funny, how metal can control so much of their lives, so much of their destiny. Entwine it with others whether in the violence of the kill or simply finding kindred spirits. Stark also has a metal piece embedded in his chest, the corners covered in scarred flesh that still looks painful to the eye, though _Tony_ assures her that it is not so.  She isn’t quite sure if she believes him.

 

              “I wasn’t a very good man.” He told her during one of the long nights they spent in his rooms, away from the watchful eye of his lover, back when Pepper was but a face without a name or personality. Her, a secret to be kept for totally different intentions.

 

              “So… I got captured, tortured. But this- “ he pointed at the energy source glooming behind his shirt, “ was what saved me. So it’s not like you. It’s painful, because of the nerve damage …but it’s a good pain. It means I’m breathing.”

 

              “It’s different from what you had…before.” _In the future._

“That, that was different. Not an energy source for my heart but for my suit.”

 

              “You didn’t need it to live.”

 

              “No” he said, thinking back on it now, it ringed false even then. “But I needed it to face Thanos. My life’s work…it’s a shame that wasn’t nearly enough.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors Note: I wrote this over a month ago, planned to send it on trailer day… The thing is I’m writing this mainly force myself writing? I don’t know if it makes sense to anyone, but I’m writing this on some random notebook, a paragraph here five pages there so that I can keep on writing. But even then, somehow it took me over a month to find the will to sit in front of a computer and copy the words down and send the chapter here. It’s not like this is some major work, it’s not even writer's block. I have no idea what is wrong with me.
> 
>  
> 
>               About the trailer….see I told you they needed Loki for water and supplies 😊
> 
>  
> 
>               Thank you so much for waiting.
> 
>  

 

 

 

Loki watches the scene unfold with the same intensity as he would watch the paint dry, you know as one does. He has no doubt that Nebula, one of Thanos’s top agents can hold herself against some measly Earth-born assassin, whose purpose, as far as Loki can pinpoint, goes only so far as to play the shied to Captain America (which is to say put himself in harms way if necessary so the other can survive, as Thor often does for Loki should the occasion call for it).

 

              Of course, he cares about Nebula’s wellbeing. On a scale from I spent so much energy and magic on her body to Thor his affections grow exponentially each day, earning gruff remarks from his brother about how he can never bear to keep her out of his sight.

 

              “Here you go”, he takes the champagne glass from Pepper’s hand with a sigh indicating gratitude, eyes never once leaving Nebula who is making her way across the ever-crowded room with inhuman persistency.

 

“Thank you, my dear.”

 

 She is wearing a nude dress that his mother wouldn’t be seen in even as a sleeping gown but looks effortlessly elegant and important in it. Midgard works differently Loki has found out early on, sometimes showing off power and showing of your riches come to mean two different things. Pepper might be the one wearing the plainest gown, perhaps in an attempt to match Stark’s carefree style- she is easily the most powerful person in the room, and one of the most breathtaking, not because of and maybe even in spite of the attire.

 

              Now that Lady Pepper knows all of their secrets – Well for Loki’s part what he deemed OK to share with Stark- she is actually a lot more helpful to him compared to her male partner. She is formidable in both matters of heart and matters of state. Moreover, she is more aware of diplomacy and economics than Stark will ever be. (Yes, Stark is exceptionally, singularly smart for a human being but not many things hold his interest for long, Loki has found once he tried to tell him about Asgardian magic and history). It’s really not hard to see why she is the one running one of the biggest corporations on Earth and for that alone she would have made a great mentor for Loki. But she is also becoming a good confidant, however slowly, concerning matters of the heart as well. He spends so much of his free time with Tony Stark and Nebula, both if he dares say more emotionally damaged and unavailable than him. Pepper has tremendous experience with Tony already, so it is no surprise he is better at small talk with him than Fandral, who has proven himself to be a good companion if not totally unaware of Loki’s inner turmoil, and Thor who is simply not an option.

 

Perhaps that’s why Pepper is the one he opens up to first, though it wasn’t a confession out of courage but frustration. Again, in a situation somehow similar to this, as they watched Tony work on yet another part of Nebula’s circuits over a bottle of wine.

 

              “How did you make him notice you at last?” and of course the answer is that Stark was almost dead at the time, giving him the courage to be finally selfish about a couple of things. But in the life they are leading, near death situations and almost fatal injuries are commonplace and when Thor is concerned even that didn’t seem to do the trick last time.

 

              Loki vaguely remembers his brother, trying to shield what he thought to be Loki’s corpse from the blast of the exploding ship. Always stepping up the game, that’s his brother.

 

              Whatever problems he has with Thor of course, have to wait. But there is an impatience in him, impatience of a man who knows what is to come. Having already lost one future by his side, it’s simply unimaginable to conceive that he might lose another, simply because he refuses to talk about something as silly as… feelings.

 

              And Loki honestly doesn’t know if it would make any difference if he were to voice his feelings out anyways. Yes, there is this head-turning, drunkenness-inducing exhilaration to what they are doing here, knowing that there are only two possible outcomes where one is the end of all as they had known, and the other, if they can win, infinitely better than their own reality. And if Thor finds about Loki’s feelings for him, those Loki started harboring long before he learned the truth about his parentage, perverse and disgusting? What of it? If they fail it won’t matter, if they win Thor’s love will be a small price to pay for the continuity of their people and his brother’s happiness.

 

              Why is he so hesitant to pay it now, as a completely different man from the pitiful fool who crushed on his own ‘supposedly’ flesh and blood for centuries?

 

              “You really should talk to Tony about this.” Pepper had told him. And why not really? Countless times Loki has heard the man’s concerns about his betrothed since he started dabbling in this world’s crazy pseudo-magic of computers and built a conglomeration of his own in record speed. But would Stark understand Loki’s troubles?

 

              It’s funny how the pressing question is no longer _“Could Loki trust him with this?”_

 

              Universal annihilation really changes the dynamic of many relationships. Granted Stark- along with Banner once he stopped being a hideous green rage monster- has been the only member of the Avengers he really admired as his enemy. As an ally, he is quickly proving himself to be more than formidable, if there is anyone who could hold a logical conversation about Loki’s illogical feelings, it would be him.

 

Speaking of former enemies turned comrades, Nebula is on the other side of the room by now, talking with some dignitary or other. Hair twisted carefully over her breasts by Pepper who gave the men in the dressing room a disapproving glance earlier once she realized that they were staring as if they were not supposed to. With her lashes moving provocatively, the smile of a wolf on a prowl plastered on her face, Loki would almost think Nebula is flirting with everyone she comes across.

 

              Pepper finally catches where his eyes are fixed. She gives him a little nudge, so Loki puts his arm across her back and she can put her head on his shoulder to speak more freely.

 

              “Tabloids are going to love this come morning.”

 

              “Oh, hush- it will do Tony some good to remember.”

 

              Tony is dancing with Nakia a couple of steps over, no doubt masterminding some plan or the other. Loki gives a little chuckle at that, willingly even, as he knows that Tony thinks that Pepper hung the moon.

 

              “You know she was most likely trained for this, among other things.”

 

              He can feel Pepper’s voice on his skin, it’s a wonder to him how this powerful woman can be so tactile with him. Perhaps it’s a trait she got from Tony, who seems even more touch starved than him even though either Pepper or Colonel Rhodes is within arms reach whenever they are in the same room as him. And slowly as Tony started working on Nebula and as Loki joined them this intimacy has transferred to them as well somehow. Even before the mental trust came the psychical one, a bond born out of having one’s hands in the other’s insides in an attempt to stop the other from bleeding to death.

 

              Pepper’s long strawberry hair is tingling his neck, it’s a swift and painful reminder that he hasn’t felt this kind of platonic intimacy since the days of his youth when it was acceptable for him to sleep in the arms of his mother or sneak into Thor’s bed in the middle of the night.

 

              They watch, silent and together, occasionally sipping from their glasses as an excuse to why they are not dancing as Nakia successfully takes Tony across the dance floor, so she can give him to Nebula to dance with and get asked by Prince T’Challa to dance. Loki has only met the man once, earlier this evening, and in all his youth and inexperience saw him as a flight risk still. His -consort?- who was of the same profession as Romanoff and even Nebula, gave a better first impression.

 

Then from the corner of the room, something behind the heavy drapes catches his eye.

 

              “Our guest of honor has arrived.” He mumbles to Pepper, as she slowly raises her head and he takes her glass so he can put both of theirs on the nearest table and get her to the crowded dance floor, where they will have more mobility. Stark has trusted him tonight with the safety of the one that mattered him the most, Loki won't take that for granted by underestimating the reach of this human killer.

 

              “The Winter Soldier has been detected in the premises.” Jarvis, Stark’s artificial intelligence and all around a thing of brilliance alerts him in his ear. His senses are much better developed compared to those of humans, so Stark’s invention – which he specifically developed to be faster than himself, surpassing the boundaries of human capability and imagination much like his suits, is quite impressive.

 

              Tony catches his eye from across the room, technological glasses enhancing his vision so he can have the same line of sight as Loki and Nebula. Taking the hint Loki starts leading Pepper in a slow dance, as they all watch Nebula take position.

 

              Loki truly has no patience for any sort of humanly theatrics that don’t involve him, but at least he gets to dance with a truly beautiful, admirable woman.


	14. Chapter 14

 

              Tony has two bracelets, thin metal things that weigh more than she would have guessed given their size, one of which he puts on her left arm as he twirls her across the floor, much more used to the rhythmic movement than she is. The bracelet is quite eye-catching, especially for someone who is trained to look out for out of place details.

 

              “Just to be safe,” he tells her with a crooked smile. She used to find it eerie before but now likes it somewhat. At least it shows her how dangerous the current situation might be. Well maybe not dangerous for her, but it is certainly making him very very uncomfortable.

 

              Nebula hasn’t had a safe moment since maybe she was five years old, that she can only guess from the flashes of images Queen Frigga gave her, she isn’t particularly bothered about it but so far, all of Stark’s upgrades to her body seemed to be helpful, plus it’s really not the time to refuse it so publicly.

 

              Loki and Pepper are watching her too, dancing in slow circles that seem entirely too professional compared to the rest of the high clientele in the room, most of whom Tony has assured her that learned this as children in boarding school as he did.

 

              “You know, you learned how to stab someone in the neck with a toothpick and I learned how to waltz.”

 

              Tony shrugs.

 

              “I’m not sure which one is more useful in the long run.”

 

              _‘Stabbing someone in the neck with a poisonous needle as you whirled around the room’_ would be pretty cool Nebula thinks.

 

 “Bet Natasha can teach you that if you asked. Though I heard Clint is the better dancer.”

 

              But Natasha is in a mission or other with Banner now. Clint gone with them for surveillance. Which lowers Tony’s trusted assassin/spy count to just one: her. _You must not hurt him. Just disarm him enough to get him back to the lab without much trouble, ok?_

              It’s ok, Nebula was born to adapt. Well maybe not, but she was certainly trained to do so. No Matter how hard it had been, the fact that she was still alive and standing here meant that she was successful.

 

 

              *

 

              It’s easy and it’s not easy.

 

              Nebula is much stronger than a human, but she must admit that the soldier with his own enhancements, is a worthy opponent.

 

              In another world, he would have been almost fun to work with.

 

              Still, killing him would have been no problem for Nebula, if that had been her objective. She approaches him calmly because she has no hard feelings for him whatsoever, she has no feelings at all that would hinder her mission anyway. She wouldn’t let emotions get in her way in any case, unless it was rage to fuel her on or… if it was Gamora and though she didn’t admit to herself she was deadly afraid that she might actually permanently off her sister.

 

              Anyway, she approaches calmly and surely and is behind him before his human senses can catch up with her. A little bit pressure to his neck, cut off some circulation, some air…so that he would be dead weight in her arms but not necessarily dead.

 

              She would bring him back and meet up with the guys.

 

              But just as Nebula wraps a robotic arm around his throat, the soldier counters her arm with a robotic arm of his own.

 

              None the matter, she can deal with it.

 

              But then he turns, and Nebula sees blue eyes in terror staring back at her.

 

              She expected dead eyes, eyes that she saw every time she looked into the mirror over the years, serving as an assassin to her own father.

 

              Instead, in them, she sees her gaze reflected, every time her father set her for an impossible choice, every time she was beaten and disassembled.

 

              She saw herself staring back,

 

              terrified but completely under control still.

 

              Feelings for a mission,

 

              she wasn’t supposed to have them. 

 

              Metal fingers trembled.

 

              The Winter Soldier fell on her, unconscious. She too, crumbled under the weight of the haunted years.

 

              *

 

              “And if it doesn’t work?”

 

              “Trust me, even if it doesn’t this is the better option for him.”

 

              Nebula looks at him, for once as her true blue self, putting some bandages over her left arm where the soldier managed to graze her with a switchblade.

 

              “You are still not giving him a choice.”

 

              _He never gave my parents one._ It’s a selfish thought, that he knows. It’s also unbidden, he can’t help but think it. Of course, he knows that Bucky Barnes cannot be accountable for Hydra’s misdeeds, he was but a weapon, an arm, like the thousands Tony had actually built and put in the hands of bad people. But the betrayal is multi-layered in its façade, wrapped in many emotions that also make it very hard to look Steve Rogers in the eye.

 

But Steve is as innocent as a baby born out of the ice still and Tony just saw Rhodey yesterday, safe and alive and walking, actually running with him during their routine morning jog that Tony actually makes the time to go this time around.

 

              “He was a soldier even before this Nebula, he will understand, appreciate it even.”

 

              This new… opportunity (for the lack of a better word) gave him another chance to bond with his father (again and again words escape him to describe this atrocious situation he has found himself in). Which led him to millions of journal entries he didn’t even know existed, besides that video on the Stark expo and how the man allegedly built all this for him.

 

              His father’s old journals don’t give him any closure on his ongoing daddy issues. They never mention him and almost never mention Maria, which Tony finds a relief. He can just look at them as scientific documents as opposed to family memorabilia, fast and efficient. But there are also many things written in them besides Stark Industries, his father’s advancements, and military contracts. The stepping stones of Shield are in there embedded in code, manual code that will take many years to crack – but maybe his father was actually working for Tony’s future because he knows it by heart, forced  upon him as a chore to keep him quiet at the corner of the room, so that he didn’t disturb whatever meeting or dinner party his parents were throwing at the time. These files include countless mentions of Peggy Carter, Steve Rogers and the Howling Commandos and of course the quick-witted easy on the eye Barnes, who was completely at ease with his friend being under the spotlight as long as he was allowed to be in the shooting distance at any time.

 

The fact that his father knew his killer so well is a distressing one, he isn’t sure if the fact that the last pair of eyes his set on were familiar ones is something good or bad, if his father had felt betrayed or only grateful that this old comrade was alive still. But no, his father had never been the optimist Steve was, if given the time he would but feel sorrow and pity for the memory of the great charismatic man he once knew, turned into a puppet, in the hands of a much less merciful puppet master than himself. There is no way denying that both Tony and his father cost innocents their lives. Even the millions his dad might have saved don’t clean out his ledger.

 

One life saved for one life destroyed, real life isn’t a mathematical equation, nothing truly equals another.

 

              “Are you really sure, Tony?”

 

              Nebula puts on a shirt and stands up to come next to him. She is not keen on physical contact, perhaps never will be. But these days she actually willingly comes closer to them even though she can hear them from afar just as well.

 

              Tony gulps.

 

              He can’t give up his resolve, not for morals, not for his mother, not for anything.

 

              “We are doing this.”


End file.
